Jack Scalia, 61, was booked on suspicion of trying to bring a gun on
an aircraft after the weapon was discovered about 1:30 p.m. at Terminal
7, according to sources familiar with the incident.A native of Brooklyn, Scalia has acted in dozens of productions but
is best known for his work on shows such as "Dallas" and "Remington
Steele."

But you know what the truth is, these guys who get caught up in the one-strike-you're-out thing are usually NOT committing their first strike. These are dangerous and irresponsible gun owners who finally get caught.

Police say a West Michigan man
stabbed his father to death before fatally shooting himself following an
argument about a new business venture.Muskegon
Township police Chief Ken Sanford says 30-year-old Justin Laverty and
57-year-old David Laverty were working on a swimming pool at a home
Thursday. During the project, [T]hey argued over a new business the father planned to launch.David
Laverty's wife left the home in Muskegon County's Muskegon Township to
run an errand. She arrived home in the afternoon to find both dead.Police
say Justin Laverty apparently stabbed his father with a knife then went
into an upstairs bedroom and fatally shot himself in the head with a
shotgun.

He stabbed his dad and then went for a gun to commit suicide. What can we take from that? For murder anything will do but for suicide the preference is a firearm? Maybe. How about this. Unstable and irresponsible people shouldn't have guns handy. The damage would be less.

According to Wrangell Police Department
Lieutenant Merlin Ehlers, officers responded to the store at
approximately 1:30 p.m. after a single round was discharged from a
vehicle parked in front of the business. Ehlers said a child who had
been left unattended fired the round from what he called a “large
caliber hunting rifle.”

According to WPD chief Doug McCloskey, the child involved is 4 years old.

The
bullet traveled through at least four inches of wood flooring, entered a
box containing more than 30 feet of plastic bilge tubing and came to
rest between three layers of cardboard.

Police have not released
the name of the driver of the vehicle, though McCloskey added that the
department has referred the case to prosecutors for possible charges.

POSSIBLE charges? What in the world is wrong with these people? They need to investigate? And then what, give the guy a warning to be more careful? Or, maybe to plead guilty to lesser charges than the felony recklessness it was?

This is in gun-friendly Alaska, where the reluctance to hold lawful gun owners responsible for their actions is a way of life.

As part of my broad interest in comparative religions, including not only the well-known major religions, but also the minor ones, I did some reading on the various pagan faiths, including the works of Anton Lavey. Contrary to popular belief, pagans are not, for the most part, Satanists. Pre-Anton Lavey (a rather pretentious revision of his real name, Howard Levey), Satanism in the medieval European sense was a revision or opposite specifically or western Christianity. Most paganism, past or present, has no connection to Christianity, good or bad, whatsoever. Lavey's Satanism does NOT rely on a reworking of either Christian ritual or the Christian mythos.

Naturally, I've also read nearly everything ever written by Ayn Rand.

While I don't expect Ryan to be conversant with the finer points of either Lavey OR Rand, as he seems to be more of a poseur than any kind of genuine intellectual figure, either philosophical or mathematical, the dominant themes of both Rand and Lavey of selfishness as an expression of individualism, the opposition to altruism as the antithesis of selfishness, the emphasis on materialism are all consistent with both authors.

Lavey might actually be more positive towards the equality of women, and less of a misogynist than Ryan and the Rand-loving right.

So when I post the following, it is with a certain wry appreciation of how superbly accurate in detail, beyond the simple quotations shown, it really is. This was NOT taken out of context, it is not the gross distortion that someone unfamiliar with either Rand or Lavey might take it to be; it is a fair representation of Ryan, Rand AND Lavey.

The shooting was over an apparent break-up, and the suspect was taken to
SAPD headquarters for questioning before possible charges are filed.The woman had come to the man's place to collect her personal items, and
something happened during that time to cause an argument. She went
outside and he followed her, taking aim at her car and opening fire,
police said.
The shots shattered glass and also hit the side of the vehicle, police
said. The woman suffered minor injuries from the broken glass.Police said they found a shotgun and a handgun underneath the home where the suspect was holed up.

A former megachurch maintenance man accused of killing a volunteer
leading a prayer service was charged more than a decade ago with a
shooting at a mosque in Maryland, according to police documents.

Floyd
Palmer was acting as security at a Baltimore mosque in June 2001 when
he shot another man working with him, wounding him in the back. Palmer tried to fire the gun again, but it jammed. When other
people ran over to him, he turned the gun on them, but it again wouldn't
fire.

Palmer
faced attempted murder, assault and handgun charges, and he was
committed to a psychiatric hospital in 2004 after pleading not
criminally responsible to lesser charges. Court records show he was
released the next year.

It's not clear when he made his way south
to Atlanta. He had been working at World Changers Church International,
but quit in August for "personal reasons," Fulton County Police Cpl. Kay
Lester said.

On Wednesday, authorities said Palmer, 51, calmly
walked into a chapel as Greg McDowell, 39, was leading a morning prayer
service for a group of about 25 people.

Palmer
casually walked out of the chapel and police arrested him several hours
later when they spotted his station wagon at a mall in suburban
Atlanta. Police said they have not found the gun.

Let's continue to make it easy for guys like this to get guns. Let's continue giving them a slap on the wrist for first offenses. Let's continue listening to the gun-rights folks on this.

The loaded .45-caliber Glock handgun left in a crowded Denver International Airport restroom belonged to a Drug Enforcement Administration agent based in Houston, according to records obtained Tuesday.The gun, with one round in the chamber and 10 in the magazine, was
found by a traveler last week on the back of a toilet seat beyond Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, according to a Denver police report."He states he had used the restroom and had accidently left the
handgun there," notes the police report. "At the request of (an FBI
agent) the credentials were verified and the handgun was released back
to him and he resumed his travels."When guns are found, especially in airports, the incidents tend to
make news. But many more are quietly lost under an array of
circumstances.The Department of Homeland Security
had 179 firearms go missing from 2006 through 2008 - in places like
cars, restaurants and restrooms - because officers did not properly
secure them.

I'm going out on a limb here and saying that if trained law officers do this, civilian gun owners do too. The pro-gun crowd like to say they are safer and more responsible than cops, but I don't buy it.

Whatever reports we have about this kind of thing, you can bet it's just the tip of the iceberg. No one, not the DEA or a private individual, wants to admit this kind of mistake unless they are forced to.

Perhaps we have to consider another considerable source of guns which flow from the good guys to the bad guys.

According to Lawson, thieves gained entry into the storage shed by cutting through both locks on the double doors.

After entering, they dragged
the safe containing the guns outside to a waiting vehicle. From there,
they drove to the other side of the parking lot to a stand of trees
where they pried open the safe, thereby destroying it.

Of course the thieves are 100% responsible for what they did and should be arrested and punished accordingly. But, what kind of shabby locks did the gun club use for security. And what kind of safe is not bolted to the floor and heavy enough to deter what happened?

I'm afraid this is another case of negligence on the part of the gun club in their storage and security measures.

A
Nebraska man was accidently shot by someone in his hunting party Sunday
in the Selby area, said Walworth County Chief Deputy Sheriff Josh Boll.

The
70-year-old man was taken by ambulance to Mobridge Regional Hospital
and later to St. Alexius Medical Center in Bismarck, N.D., where he is
in stable condition. The man had serious, but non-life-threatening,
injuries, Boll was told.

The
man, whose name is not yet being released, was part of a four-person
group hunting pheasants southeast of Selby near 136th Street and 310th
Avenue, Boll said.

A member of the man's party was shooting at a pheasant when the man was accidently shot with a 12-gauge shotgun, Boll said.

We just posted something about the disparity between the news we read of gun accidents and the supposed low numbers of them provided by so-called official sources.

What do you think? Is it possible that some gun accidents are not getting into the official data base? What about the other reporting the pro-gun side relies so heavily on? In North Dakota they have exceedingly low numbers of everything to do with the misuse of guns. Or do they?

She made the remark on Twitter after the third and final presidential
debate between Obama and Mitt Romney. "I highly approve of Romney's
decision to be kind and gentle to the retard," she tweeted.

She doubled down
on Tuesday afternoon, tweeting, "Obama: "Stage 3 Romneysia" - because
cancer references are HILARIOUS. If he's "the smartest guy in the room"
it must be one retarded room."

Ann Coulter is so much worse than the prominent Liberal personalities that it's not even close. And she's not alone, what with Rush Limbaugh and any number of other hateful conservative blabber mouths.

A 3-year-old was shot in the head in Sunnyside Monday night, police
said. Police said they believe the child was shot accidentally
while riding in a car near Yakima Valley Highway and East Edison Avenue.

He is listed in critical condition. Police impounded the car and gun as part of their investigation.

Well, that's great they got the car and the gun, buy how about an ARREST. What the hell kind of investigation is necessary to determine whom to arrest? Maybe they're trying to determine if it was just an accident in which case no charges will be necessary.

From his bed at McKay-Dee Hospital, Jonathon Pettit issued an
emotional written statement Tuesday saying divine intervention saved him
after an accidental shooting on the opening day of the state’s rifle
deer season.

“There is no doubt in my mind that I was protected,” Pettit, a
53-year-old Roy resident, said in the statement recounting his harrowing
tale of survival. “The gunshot should have killed me. I am so grateful
that I found the strength to survive.”

Pettit was hunting Saturday in a remote area near Snowville between
Kelton and Locomotive Springs and had just removed his antique
.36-caliber Navy muzzleloader pistol from his truck when the gun
discharged.

“I had my gun in my hand and lifted my tailgate,” he wrote. “The
force of closing the tailgate discharged the pistol. It (the bullet)
entered my right side and traveled up my body and lodged on my back
bone.”

Divine intervention, was it? Too bad god didn't help him with Rule number 2. That would have been even better.

Here's the really interesting part of the story.

Typically, about one hunter a year accidentally shoots themselves in Box Elder County, said Box Elder Chief Deputy Kevin Potter.

So, that one single county in Utah which allows hunting has one accidental self-inflicted gun shot incident every year. Does that mean they also have some shootings in which one hunter wounds or kills another? Would the same be true of the other counties in Utah and all the other states that have hunting.

And that would be only the hunting accidents. We see far more domestic gun accidents in the news.

How does all this reconcile with the statistics we keep hearing from the pro-gun crowd which supposedly prove how rare accidental shootings are? It doesn't. It doesn't reconcile. Regardless of whether the information comes from the FBI or the CDC or from god himself through divine intervention, when it doesn't make sense, when it doesn't add up, there must be some other explanation.

There are more accidental shootings than anyone on the pro-gun side likes to admit.

Isn't it possible that the most bona fide statistics suffer from improper reporting?

A Clarks Green man shot himself in the hand in a Scranton business
Monday morning, then fired a second accidental shot just outside the
building.

Scranton police acting Capt. Glen Thomas said Michael Paolucci III, 24,
was showing his handgun to a co-worker in the break room at Gress
Refrigeration, 1520 N. Keyser Ave., when the shooting occurred.

Mr. Paolucci somehow fired the gun accidentally, shooting himself in
the hand, then walked outside, where the gun fired a second time. Another employee then took the gun from Mr. Paolucci and put it in his
car. When police arrived, they were directed to the weapon, Capt. Thomas
said.

He will be charged with two counts of recklessly endangering another
person and one count of discharging a firearm into an occupied space,
police said.

I'm surprised they charged him. I guess with two negligent discharges in a row, they had no choice.

Two Wisconsin lawmakers are pushing legislation to tighten the
enforcement of gun rules in domestic violence cases, prompted by a fatal
shooting rampage at a suburban Milwaukee spa.Radcliffe Haughton, 45, bought a handgun just two days after his
beleaguered wife obtained a restraining order against him. He used that
weapon to kill her and two other women Sunday at the salon where she
worked, before fatally shooting himself.Sen. Lena Taylor said the shooting highlights the need for better
enforcement of laws that require restraining order recipients to
surrender their weapons."Across Wisconsin there are inconsistent standards, or sometimes none
at all, for the collection of weapons owned by domestic abusers," the
Milwaukee Democrat said Monday as she and Rep. Penny Bernard Schaber
pushed for the bill.Radcliffe Haughton’s wife, Zina, secured the four-year restraining
order against him on Thursday, at which point he was ordered to hand
over all of his firearms to a county sheriff. It’s unclear whether he
turned in any weapons.Around 11 a.m. Sunday, Radcliffe Haughton opened fire at the Azana Day Spa in Brookfield. He had bought the .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun he used in the
attack from a private owner on Saturday, according to police in Brown
Deer, the Milwaukee suburb where Haughton lived. The seller did nothing
illegal; private individuals are not required to conduct background
checks or enforce a 48-hour waiting period as licensed gun dealers are
under state law.Taylor’s legislation calls for individuals who are subject to a
restraining order to be forced to surrender their firearms within 48
hours or face arrest. The bill failed in 2010 largely due to opposition
from the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups.

It seems to me they need to do more than enforce the restrictions on domestic abusers. They need to eliminate the private sales of guns without background checks.

A poll published recently shows that 42 percent of likely voters in California favor Proposition 34,
which would replace the death penalty in California with
life-without-parole. Roughly the same percentage supports the death
penalty. Thirteen percent are undecided.

If those 13 percent have heard any of the debate about California's
death penalty, they already know that the state has the largest death
row in the country and that those inmates are more likely to die of old age and natural causes than execution. If they've heard anything about Proposition 34, they know that it will save the state $1 billion in the next five years and direct millions of dollars to solving unsolved rapes and murders.

But when we hear the stories of injustice -- defense attorneys
arriving at court in an alcohol-induced stupor, men being executed
despite grave doubts that they are actually guilty, prosecutors
suppressing evidence -- we still associate them with that death penalty down there -- the one that the Southern states carry out.

Not only does California's death penalty have its own problems, but
its very existence lends support to death rows in other states. For its
own share, California's death penalty is obscenely expensive -- it
costs $130 million more per year than life in prison without parole. Meanwhile, a shocking 56 percent of reported rapes and 46 percent of homicides go unsolved every year in this state. We know that innocent men like Franky Carillo,
who spent 20 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of a
shooting by mistaken eyewitness testimony, have fallen prey to the
system's flaws.

Anumber of States have already abolished the death penalty, It's about time California did so. Its reputation as the progressive leader of the US is in jeopardy.

A 53-year-old man was charged this morning in connection with the accidental shooting of his son Saturday afternoon in their Rogers Park home.

Charles
Johnson of the 1300 block of West Estes Avenue was charged with one
count of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, possession of a firearm,
police said.

Johnson had hidden his gun in the garage but noticed
that the weapon had disappeared about six months ago, according to a
police report. When Johnson saw his .38 caliber gun on his son's desk,
he confronted him and the two began to argue, according to police.

When the boy picked up the
gun, Johnson tried to wrestle the gun away from him and during the
struggle, the gun discharged, striking the 17-year-old, according to the
report.

Police found the boy in a bedroom lying on a couch with a
gunshot wound to his right cheek. They found the gun lying on the
floor.

He wasn't arrested for the act of shooting his son. That's what wrong.

Some Kansas cities and the Libertarian Party are
locked in a dispute, as you may know, over whether cities can legally
prohibit people from openly carrying loaded weapons in public places.
The party says an open-carry ban would violate both the U.S. and Kansas
constitutions and state law.

They may be right on the law, but the constitutional picture is cloudier. Let’s see why.

Kansas
has guaranteed an individual the right to possess weapons since its
founding more than 150 years ago. The state’s original constitution
included this: “The people have the right to bear arms for their peace
and security.”

Curiously, however, late 19th century Kansans interpreted that
language rather loosely. Dodge City, Wichita, and Abilene openly
restricted firearms possession, and in 1905 the Kansas Supreme Court
upheld a Salina gun control law by finding no individual right to carry a
weapon.

“It was the safety and security of society that was being
considered when this provision was put into our constitution,” the
court ruled.

Winds blow and laws change, of course. In 2010,
Kansas voters amended their constitution to more firmly create an
individual right to bear arms, and the same year the U.S. Supreme Court
said the U.S. Constitution contains a similar guarantee.

But
conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, made a
crucial point: “No fundamental right — not even the First Amendment — is
absolute,” he wrote.

If Evergreen State voters pass a ballot measure to legalize marijuana,
as currently appears likely, that doesn’t mean pot smokers will be
legally able to buy or possess firearms, Examiner has learned.A source with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
in Washington, D.C. Friday confirmed what had been explained in a
Sept., 21, 2011 letter from Arthur Herbert, assistant director for
enforcement programs and services to firearms retailers regarding gun purchases by medical marijuana patients. This column discussed
the issue then, and as the pot vote looms, Washington State gun owners
need to know they cannot get stoned and head for the gun range or
hunting camp if voters approve Initiative 502.

It's hard to imagine a more irresponsible activity for gun owners than smoking pot, well, other than drinking alcohol, that is. Getting loaded has no place in the life of the responsible gun owner. The gun-rights folks love to talk about situational awareness and perpetual readiness. How can getting high possibly fit into that?

The body of the suspect in a Saturday morning rampage in which five
members of an Inglewood family were shot — two fatally — was believed to
be found in the ashes of his home, wearing body armor, clutching a
revolver and bearing a gunshot wound to the head, police said Sunday.

A
corpse was discovered among the remains of a torched house on West 99th
Street inhabited by Desmond John Moses, a 55-year-old licensed security
guard and the registered owner of the .38-caliber handgun. A positive
identification of the body is expected in the coming days.

I suppose this is another one of those exceedingly rare examples of a lawful gun owner going bad. That's one of the weakest arguments the gun-rights fanatics have, that "very few" lawful gun owners commit crimes with their weapons. They keep saying almost all (I've seen 99% quoted) gun crime is done by drug dealers and gang members.

Of course, such arguments are ridiculous. They are the equivalent of claiming that gun violence can never occur in states where there exists minimum gun control laws.

Such arguments are a smokescreen. The hope of the gunloon is to deflect attention away from the easy access to guns.

Suicide isn't a one-size-fits-all proposition. As we all know, many gun suicides occur after someone has killed another and doesn't want to address the aftermath: prison, embarrassment, notoriety, etc. Most gun suicides involve fleeting moments of despair--the loss of a girlfriend, job loss, embarrassment, social humiliation, etc.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Radcliffe A man opened fire on workers of a spa at a mall in Brookfield, Wisconsin on Sunday that killed three people and injured four others.Details are still coming out, but
this is what we know: Franklin Haughton is suspected of
opening fire at the Azana Day Spa at around 11 a.m. Sunday. Police later
found an improvised explosive in or near the spa. Haughton was able to
escape and remains at large. The surrounding area, including a hospital
where most of the victims were treated, was put into lockdown while
police scoured the area for Haughton. Police officials said they found
his car abandoned away from the mall. NBC News reports Haughton's estranged former partner works at the spa, and a restraining order that included a ban firearm ban was in place barring Haughton from contacting her:

On Oct. 18, a temporary restraining order was issued against Haughton
"with firearm restriction," according to Milwaukee County court records.
A hearing was held that day, and Haughton was ordered to deliver his
firearms to the sheriff and to have no contact for four years with the
complainant or the residence. The complainant isn't identified in the
court record.

Public records also show Haughton has a history of financial and legal
trouble. This was also the second mass shooting in Wisconsin in three
months. A gunman opened fire on a Sikh temple at the beginning of August.

A 9-year-old girl was shot accidentally by a
shotgun Saturday night in New Sewickley Township in Beaver County,
authorities said.

A county police dispatcher said the department
received a call at 8:02 p.m. that someone trying to shoot a skunk had
accidentally hit a girl in the shoulder. The incident happened in the
300 block of Brewer Road. Police would not identify the victim or the
shooter.

The dispatcher said the youngster was taken to
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, Lawrenceville. A condition
report was not available.

Not a word about the shooter other than it was "someone" with a shotgun. No mention of charges or even of an investigation.

People who shoot other people mistaking them for animals should go to jail and lose their gun rights, period.

Why is that so difficult? Why is there so much discussion about whether it was an accident or negligence, as if that makes a difference? We need to take gun responsibility more seriously. There are too many "accidents."

Madonna loves to shock but her concert in Denver Thursday night took that to a whole new level.
Using a fake gun to shoot a masked gunman and climbing up a wall splattered with blood, Madonna's Gang Bang, which includes the lyrics "shot my lover in the head."The scene was far too familiar to what happened in a theater in nearby Aurora July 20 during a midnight premiere showing of The Dark Knight. A masked gunman opened fire, killing 12 and injuring another 58. James Holmes has been charged in the horrendous crime.“We’re dancing and all of a sudden people started realizing what the song was,” concert-goer Aaron Fransua, 25, told AP “We all just stood there. Everybody who was around me all had shock on their face. I heard a lot of ‘wows,’” Fransua said.

I think Madonna is the greatest, but it might be time to retire. Her twenty-something competitors are too hot and too brazen for her to keep up with. No one of them will ever come close to touching her and her career, so there's no need for desperate theatrics in order to compete.

A regional Gun Violence Task Force last week arrested a woman with a
clean criminal record accused of illegally purchasing six guns for a
convicted felon who would have been barred from buying and owning
firearms.

Agents from the task force also arrested the felon, Michael Gardiner,
31, at his home in the 7000 block of Yocum Street in Philadelphia. He
had two of the illegally purchased guns when arrested, according to the
Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.

Gardiner has been convicted of several crimes since 2002, authorities said, including robbery and theft.

His accused accomplice, Lakeisha Taylor, 41, admitted to agents that she
had bought Gardiner six guns since December 2011, authorities said. A
suspicious salesman tipped off the task force Oct. 11 when Taylor bought
two .40-caliber handguns at a local store.

She was arrested Wednesday and Gardiner on Thursday. They were charged with gun trafficking.

Because of the lack of proper gun control laws, it's very difficult to identify straw purchasers. I wonder what it was in this case that tipped off the salesperson?

Documents obtained by The
Spokesman-Review provide new details surrounding the near tragedy,
including concerns from a departmental gun safety instructor who
described O’Connell as having a nonchalant attitude about the importance
of proper handling of loaded firearms. The documents also reveal, for
the first time, that another child was endangered but unharmed during
the incident.

Police officials suspended the 18-year veteran for
three weeks without pay this summer for carelessly leaving his loaded
police firearm atop his bedroom nightstand, where his daughter found it
and shot herself in the leg. It was the 16th time O’Connell has faced
internal investigation, and the decision to let him return to the force
after his suspension was described as a “last chance.”

Officer Barry is a good example of the way in which some people are impervious to training safety warnings.They are absolutely incapable of handling firearms in a safe manner. The disgraceful coverup on the part of the police department and the "last chance" nonsense is not the solution.

When we discussed his case before we called it a police coverup and a slap on the wrist. That was about the criminal charges being dropped against this irresponsible character. Now the internal investigation has done the same thing.

The accidental shooting came just 16 days after police Sgt. Matthew
Cowles singled out O’Connell in the presence of other officers for
mishandling his firearm during a mandatory safety course. The course had
been ordered by the department following several incidents in Western
Washington in which children were shot after finding their
parents’ guns.

What is wrong with these people giving him another chance? Were they moved by his heartfelt declaration that he'd really learned his less on this time.

“You have no idea what it’s like to carry (your daughter) in your arms
bleeding out on your chest,” O’Connell said in the report. “There’s not a
minute that goes by where I don’t second guess myself.”

It reminds me of the pathetic drunken gun owner who killed his brother. In the Officer Barry case Deputy Spokane County Prosecutor Brian O’Brien declined to charge him with a crime. O’Brien
wrote that O’Connell “accidentally” left the gun on the night stand,
despite the officer admitting that he placed the loaded gun there to
remind himself to clean it.

“By all study and legal review, this
is an accidental shooting,” O’Brien wrote. “It may rise to the level of
negligence, but does not constitute chargeable criminal conduct under
these facts.”

What in the world is that supposed to mean? Even negligence is not chargeable? If it's an accident we can shrug it off entirely, if it's negligence, still no charges are called for.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Police searched for a gunman who wore a painter’s mask as he set fire to a home before going on a shooting spree early Saturday, killing a father and his 4-year-old son and injuring a woman and two other young children near Los Angeles.The 30-year-old father was shielding two of his children when he was shot, Inglewood Police Chief Mark Fronterotta said.

Then, at 2:44 a.m. Friday, Jack and Linda Dillon told police they
were awakened by a noise in the living room. There they found Carson and
believed he was stealing the rest of the electronics, they told police.

Jack Dillon told police he called out to Carson, who lunged at him.
The couple told police Jack fired at Carson, but Eichenlaub would not
say how many times the weapon was fired.

Whenever the shooter uses the phrase "he lunged" I get suspicious. First of all, it's used too often. But secondly, and more importantly, it doesn't make sense. An unarmed criminal or one with a knife would not "lunge" at a man with a gun. I'm sure it happens from time to time, but certainly not as often as they claim.

The article goes on to chronicle the dead guys criminal past. He'd had more than his share of trouble. I say a street-wise guy like that is a survivor and knows there's no percentage in "lunging" at an armed homeowner. That would be tantamount to suicide and there's no indication that this thug was suicidal.

No, what I suspect is what happens in many so-called DGUs. The homeowner is so outraged that someone would dare to break into their home that they execute the guy standing there. In that moment the intruder ceases to be human, he becomes a scumbag or a goblin, like the pro-gun sites call them. This is far from defensive, it's a criminal act disguised as a DGU with no living witnesses.

State
wildlife officials say a South Florida hunter was likely mistaken for a
boar by a friend who accidentally shot and killed him.Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials tell The Palm Beach Post that Ernie Small Jr. likely mistook his friend Clinton Haas of Loxahatchee for a boar while they were hunting Thursday night near Jupiter.Haas' shooting was ruled accidental, though wildlife officials say their investigation remains open.

I guess this is just a simple hunting accident with the ironic title of having been mistaken for a boar. There was another pig shooting lately, but that one wasn't so much a case of mistaken identity as simple negligence.

Like all hunting "accidents" today's story about the boar hunters requires the violation of safety rules. The shooter should be charged with a crime. It doesn't take a lengthy investigation to determine where he was at fault. The problem is the mistaken idea that accidents are somehow acceptable.